This holiday season I would like to ask for a gift from you. I would like you to watch an extraordinarily inspiring movie, Mission: Joy – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times. This brilliant documentary chronicles the lives of The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates. The movie demonstrates how these spiritual giants have overcome tremendous adversity and retained their sense of joy and open hearts. If you would like to stay in a high vibration no matter what is going on around you, this film will surely help you do it. (Currently available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Vudu channels) (Also see The Book of Joy)
While I thought this film might be another talking-heads documentary, it is far, far more. The Dalai Lama and Tutu in conversation are grand models of celebratory living. They laugh copiously, touch each other affectionately, tease each other, and when considering suffering, they drop into deep compassion. These teachers of love prove without a doubt that the spiritual path does not have to be a serious, arduous task. Lightheartedness, you will see, is the great transformer.
I found it especially fascinating to watch the Dalai Lama relate to Archbishop Tutu as a peer. I imagine there are not many people who relate to His Holiness as a friend. As spiritual leader of hundreds of millions of people, most people look up to the Dalai Lama and worship him. This can be a lonely position. Even enlightened people need friends who support them in a different way than followers. Plato said, “True friendship can occur only among equals.” The love between these two great souls is palpable.
At age seventeen, the Dalai Lama had to defend Tibet against invasion by China. He has been exiled from his beloved country since 1959. Desmond Tutu experienced the horrific treatment of South African blacks during Apartheid, and he was instrumental in ending that oppressive regime. If those two men can retain positive, loving attitudes under such trying conditions, you and I can do the same under far less severe circumstances.
I am calling your watching the film a gift to me because all minds are joined. As you elevate your experience to greater joy, I receive the benefit, and so does the entire planet. Your happiness is your most powerful gift to the world, and enjoying this film will be an important step in that direction.
As Thanksgiving approaches, I am grateful for you and all the blessings you bring to my life. Let us together be grateful that there are enlightened beings among us who point the way home by their example.
